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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28184196">Uncommon Returns</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmxvi/pseuds/cmxvi'>cmxvi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Lazarus Pit (DCU), M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Chronological, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-New 52, Sort of..., they're both idiots with major emotional issues</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 12:01:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28184196</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmxvi/pseuds/cmxvi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Rare and small but nonetheless present, there are moments when Jason reaches out. Allowing Tim to wander his apartment, no longer with a wary eye watching over Tim’s movements. A touch to the arm or the back of the neck, signalling Tim to look somewhere or maybe drawing Tim closer—but only closer. </p>
<p>Tim wishes he knew how to reach back."</p>
<p>It's been years, but sometimes Jason can still feel the swirl of the Lazarus Pit within himself. This feeling intensifies when strange things start happening in Gotham until one day Tim finds that Jason has disappeared and he's left behind to figure out why. </p>
<p>About someone who finds endless hope in return and someone who finds endless fear in what returns.</p>
<p>Sorry I suck at summaries.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tim Drake/Jason Todd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Uncommon Returns</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>The earth yields uncommon returns.</strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>– JK Risbeck, <em>Travels Through Germany</em></strong>
</p>
<p>~~</p>
<p><em>“I get it,”</em> Tim had said once, sitting across a table from Jason.</p>
<p>He looked calmer then, on the balcony. Now he looks almost shaken as he looks at Jason, who arrived just in time to see Red Robin still trying to fight off a straggler while a man in a checked jacket ran in the opposite direction, disappearing on the heels of three other men. He knows that look of worry even through Tim’s domino mask. Not worried so much about the wound and the thick red dripping down his side—visible against the red of the armour only because of the way it shines liquid against the glare of the streetlamp—but that the men had surprised him, jumped him, and then disappeared just as easily.</p>
<p>The alley walls seem to be closing in on them and his gun’s safety clicks as he fears for a moment that Red Robin might not even have enough room to fight this straggler. But the next moment Red Robin lands a blow that must have broken bone before stumbling back to lean breathlessly against the wall. In the dim lights of the alley with the bodies of three men lying unconscious around him, Tim still looks defeated.</p>
<p>It’s enough to remind Jason that Tim got sucked into all this too—was drawn in trying to piece together a broken idol. But the pieces weren’t there anymore, the vacuum remained. And somehow so did Tim.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>“Anything going on at your end?” Tim’s voice cuts through the comm with a small metallic fizzle.</p>
<p>“Not a thing,” Jason replies. He gets a small bored sigh in response.</p>
<p>It still feels weird for Jason to have someone to talk to on the comms. Although he’s worked with Red Robin with increasing frequency over the past couple of years (these days patrolling with him more often than not) he’s worked solo for far too long to be used to it yet.</p>
<p>In a way, working together was inevitable, given the fact that a large area of their respective patrol territories overlapped. At first this was the only reason they interacted at all, really. They ran into each other while following similar leads with increasing frequency until somewhere along the line they actually started sharing information and then even using each other as backup. And unlike the other Bats, Red Robin seemed more and more inclined to stay in Gotham, which Red Hood practically never left.</p>
<p>Still, Jason liked to push his limits. It took almost six months before Jason stopped greeting him with a knife out or a gun playfully balanced in his hand, though Tim knew better than to think this was a real threat (it only took three months for Tim to respond with a simple eye roll.)</p>
<p>Within the past year though (neither are quite sure when), they reached a point where it was stranger for them to work separately than together. Nowadays it’s all too easy to make a call – <em>feeling bored tonight, Red? – </em>and Tim’s there. And while neither one likes to admit it, they always worked well together. Tim’s painfully smart, never wastes a movement or a piece of intelligence, knows how to take down even the trickier criminal organizations, and has tech skills second only to Oracle’s. And Jason, well he always likes to go in with a plan, fights like a tank yet has stamina for days, has contacts where Tim could only have wires, and somehow seems only to improve while under attack from all sides.</p>
<p>Tonight though, Gotham gives them nothing to fight for.</p>
<p>Jason sits precariously on a balcony on one of the highest condos in Gotham, waiting for something to happen.</p>
<p>Judging by the view, this must also be one of the most expensive condos in the city. He can see the entire city from here (or at least its prettier parts).</p>
<p>Despite the hour, cars form a complicated river of headlights in the streets below. From this high up he can barely even hear the angry horns of night traffic, which makes the light of it look almost inviting. The wavering stream of lights form a dense net across the city – all the way from the darkened water that chews at Gotham’s shores to the reservoir at the very center with its green pull of water.</p>
<p>Less inviting is Gotham’s jagged skyline. These nights, the city seems to shudder inward toward some untouchable core. Sometimes Jason can’t help but be reminded of a scared child as the city buildings seemingly retreat inwards. Now, it no longer looks upward for a sign of hope but only continues in its solipsistic effort that strangles the very center it tries to embody.</p>
<p>Yet, despite appearances, Gotham has grown. The city is so much bigger than he ever properly realized as a child yet it looks so much the same as it did when he was still new to such heights. Sometimes in places like this he almost feels like time has somehow folded him back into his childhood.</p>
<p>Bored and acutely aware of Tim’s presence on the other end of the line he checks the time. Only 2:22am. He leans back and rests his head against the building. His helmet makes a small unpleasant scraping sound against the red brick.</p>
<p>The city was especially busy this night with the high profile Cézanne exhibit, people returning late from their weekend cottages, and the usual outpour as the bars close. Yet here Jason sits, bored out of his mind. Besides the few muggings and fights he’s managed to stumble across tonight, it’s turned out to be one of those nights where he wonders why he even bothered to leave the apartment. Even with all of Gotham’s biggest threats either locked away or deep in hiding at the moment, he thought the big flash of wealth that was an art exhibit would manage to bring <em>something</em> out of the woodwork. Especially considering the fact that he was one of only two masks (three, if Oracle was active, too) patrolling tonight.</p>
<p>Tim seemed to follow a similar line of reasoning earlier when he suggested they make sure the exhibit went on safely before patrolling separate sides of the city. With Dick in Blüdhaven, Damian off-planet alongside his father and the Justice League, Cass in Hong Kong, and Stephanie busy doing god knows what, he was clearly worried that they would be stretched thin tonight. Turns out, there was no reason to be concerned.</p>
<p>“Still nothing?” Tim’s voice cuts back through the comm.</p>
<p>“Sorry, Red,” Jason replies. “Though I am considering saying to hell with safety and creating armour with shorts for next summer. This heat is killing me.”</p>
<p>Tim lets out a small laugh. “As much as I’d like for you to keep all your limbs, I think I might want to see Red Hood running around in shorts and a crop top even more.”</p>
<p>“What about you?”</p>
<p>“I think I’ll stick to full-body armour, actually.”</p>
<p>“So I guess there’s nothing going on at your end either, then,” Jason rolls his eyes.</p>
<p>“The one time I actually came across a robbery the GCPD were already there,” Tim replies and pauses before adding, “I mean it’s good that people aren’t getting robbed or murdered I guess, but <em>Christ</em> I’m bored.”</p>
<p>“Same here.” Jason’s helmet scrapes against the brick again as he shifts forward off the balcony to descend onto a lower rooftop.</p>
<p>“So,” he says once he’s on the roof, “what was that party you and Blondie were so hush-hush about earlier?” Apparently, he still hasn’t kicked that habit of pushing Tim’s buttons. When he heard Stephanie on Tim’s end of the phone yelling at him that she’ll kick his ass if he forgets to come to some upcoming party, he shelved it away for later.  </p>
<p>“It wasn’t ‘<em>hush-hush</em>,’” Tim deflects, though Jason had noticed the suddenly muffled audio of the earlier phone call with Stephanie as Tim pressed the volume down.</p>
<p>“How evasive.” He can almost hear Tim rolling his eyes from halfway across the city.</p>
<p>Tim still doesn’t reply.</p>
<p>“Oh please, you’re not actually worried about me crashing are you? I’ve met some of your friends and Red… I think I might be the only cool person you know.”</p>
<p>“Hey! I know some cool people… also, you were <em>just</em> talking about developing armoured shorts, I’m not sure you can call yourself cool.” Jason can hear him grappling onto another building over the comm.</p>
<p>“It’s just a party for some guy I barely know who’s moving here from Metropolis,” Tim finally adds. “Honestly I doubt you’d be interested in some party that’s just going to be full of rich kids who’re either in college or dropped out to do something stupid.”</p>
<p>“So, like you,” Jason can’t resist the jab. With pretend sympathy he adds, “Jeez, you shouldn’t be so hard on your friends.”</p>
<p>“I only really know the host,” Tim says, ignoring Jason’s earlier comment.</p>
<p>Truthfully Tim was right, he had absolutely no interest in parties, especially ones where he doesn’t know anyone.</p>
<p>On the other hand, he always found it hard to resist going where he sensed he wasn’t wanted.</p>
<p>When Tim asks him to meet him in Chinatown he can tell that Tim’s skirting the topic again but doesn’t push it, only agrees.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>He curses as a car suddenly cuts him off, reminding him that it’s never been the best idea to have your head in the clouds while speeding through Gotham’s narrow streets on a motorcycle. Only a moment later, he hears Tim’s voice over the comm asking him if everything’s ok.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he replies, “just a little bit of distracted driving is all. I’m about halfway to your location.”</p>
<p>Even with his bike it’ll take a while to reach Tim from the other side of the city. He’s still barely more than halfway there when the comm crackles to life in his ear again.</p>
<p>“It’s probably nothing, but I’m tailing a small group of men right now. There are four at the moment and more keep showing up. Looks like they’re headed to Dixon Docks.”</p>
<p>“Not exactly weird behaviour, seems like the entire city’s out and about tonight,” Jason replies.</p>
<p>“Like I said, it’s probably nothing,” Tim says, sounding distracted. “They were just acting sort of strange. At first they went to some doorstep and the way they stood there I thought it was going to be some sort of half-assed drug deal, but as soon as the guy answered the door he didn’t even say anything, just grabbed his coat in a rush and joined them. Then about two minutes later one of them gets a phone call and they all just stop and stare as he listens to whoever’s on the other end for about a minute.”</p>
<p>“Bachelor party?”</p>
<p>“A little sombre for a bachelor party.”</p>
<p>“So what’re you thinking?” Jason asks while cutting through another alley, “Triads, maybe? I’ve heard rumours that they’re interested in resurfacing.”</p>
<p>“No, they’re still too weak right now to do anything more than stay holed up somewhere in central Gotham,” Tim says, thinking out loud more than anything. “Besides, they look … I don’t know… like they just walked out of an office building or something.”</p>
<p>“Right. I’ll let you know when I’m closer, keep me updated.” He picks up the pace, secretly hoping that Red Robin is actually onto something. Nothing big enough to bite him in the ass later, just something to make up for the previous hours of boredom.</p>
<p>By the time he arrives, it looks like not only was Tim onto something, but that that something had already gone down.</p>
<p>The buildings in the area surrounding the Docks are squat and mostly abandoned. Only every now and then had Jason passed a house, factory, or a warehouse that was actually in use. While the area was slowly changing due to the eager eyes of developers and as more people were pushed out of the nicer areas of Gotham due to rising rent, the change is still barely perceptible. Chances are that any activity going on in the areas surrounding Dixon Docks would be criminal.</p>
<p>Jason is reminded of this as he parks his bike by the squat buildings which, despite their stature, seem to block any light, even that of the dying streetlamps that the city seemed to have installed as a gesture rather than for any real use.</p>
<p>A man in a suit lies on the concrete and as Jason approaches he sees that the man is lying in a pool of his own fresh blood, dead.</p>
<p>Clearly, Jason had just missed something.</p>
<p>For a second he’s confused – this is the location Tim had given him, but Tim was nowhere to be seen.</p>
<p>Suddenly, the comm comes in again, but Jason can barely make it out.</p>
<p>“Red Robin? Red, is that you?” he says, a little louder than probably needed.</p>
<p>But he’s only returned with a swarm of sounds that can’t quite link up. All he can make of it is that it’s definitely Tim. But the sounds of Tim’s voice are warped, as if he’s hearing them from underwater.</p>
<p>“Red, I don’t know what’s wrong with the comms but I can’t understand a thing you’re saying.”</p>
<p>Finally comes a string of repeated words – Tim must be getting pretty frustrated – and Jason thinks he can finally make out part of what Tim’s been saying.</p>
<p>“Hull? You’re saying you’re on Hull St. right?”</p>
<p>The same garbled message repeats over the comm at a slightly faster pace.</p>
<p>“I’m not too far from Hull St. right now. Stay safe ‘til I get there – ok, Red?”</p>
<p>Again, Tim’s voice like underwater.</p>
<p>That’s when he hears a small scuffle and turns to see a man in a checked suit down the street, running on the heels of two other men in the opposite direction. Jason immediately picks up after them.</p>
<p>
  <em>Fuck. </em>
</p>
<p>In the tight streets the sound of his footsteps mingles with those of the man in front of him. The sound is muffled by the buildings and snaking alleyways surrounding them and if he closed his eyes, Jason thinks it would sound like there was only a single person running.</p>
<p>Jason picks up his speed. He can see that he’s gaining on them quickly but wonders where Tim had disappeared to. <em>It would be nice to get a little help,</em> he thinks, <em>or at least know if there’s a reason I’m chasing random people down the street. For all I know I’m being a menace for nothing. </em></p>
<p>Before Jason can reach him, the man in the checked suit takes a sudden right turn and disappears down one of the many alleyways – the other men having altogether disappeared ahead of him, probably branching off into separate alleyways.</p>
<p>Jason barely has time to curse his luck (this is one of the easiest places in town for someone to disappear in), before coming to a halt. Out of the corner of his eye Jason could swear he caught a glimpse of something deep red as he passed the old clock factory. Backtracking towards the factory on 11 Hill, he’s proven correct.</p>
<p>Coming from yet another darkened side street he can barely hear the muffled sounds of a fight and the tell-tale flash of red.</p>
<p>The street is narrow and oozes the rotting smell of buildings undergoing years of disuse and misuse. The smell is almost enough to distract Jason from the scene in front of him. Almost.</p>
<p>Red Robin looks dazed as he dodges a blow from yet another man in a suit jacket. The man is taller than Tim, but leaner, and seems to be primarily concerned with finding an opening with which to run and join the rest of his friends. The man doesn’t seem to even notice the two other seemingly unconscious bodies that lie in the cramped street.</p>
<p>Jason already has a gun out, but fortunately for the straggler Red Robin only gives Jason a hazy and somewhat confused look before turning to the man and landing a blow that, by the sound of it, breaks bone.</p>
<p>The man lets out a strangled yelp as he crumples to the ground.</p>
<p>Jason puts his gun away and looks at the scene in front of him. First, the two other bodies – both wearing somewhat more formal and professional attire – and then back at Tim and the barely conscious straggler. All of the men in front of Jason are marked with slight, freshly made wounds and already-budding bruises. Red Robin, too, looks a little worse for wear, and this is what particularly confuses Jason.</p>
<p>Even as Tim knocks the man out with enough force to perhaps hint at his mounted frustration, Jason can’t help but notice the hints that Red Robin had made it through this fight with much more difficulty than normal. He’s seen Red Robin take down more men than this while barely breaking a sweat before – even when caught off-guard, Red Robin rarely looks thrown like he does now.</p>
<p>It seems like he’s already forgotten about Red Hood’s presence as he backs up against the wall of the nearest building, looking strangely defeated. The strained yellowed streetlights illuminate the blood dribbling down Red Robin’s chin and from a small wound on his side – almost black against the brighter red of his armour.</p>
<p>It’s only when Jason takes a step forward that Tim turns his head. For a second his mouth hangs slightly open, as if still surprised or still catching his breath. For a second Jason wonders if they maybe drugged Tim.</p>
<p>But only for a second – and then Jason can tell (even through the domino mask) that Tim is looking at him with that steady, concentrated gaze that is just so very Tim.</p>
<p>Jason lets out a breath and pulls his helmet off to give Tim a little smirk.</p>
<p>“We should get your comm fixed,” he says, “This whole time I thought you were saying ‘Hull.’”</p>
<p>Tim is slouched even further against the wall, but he looks steadier now.</p>
<p>“How are you sure the problem didn’t come from your end?” he calmly rebuts. Jason just shrugs as he steps over one of the unconscious men. The side street feels somehow even more claustrophobic now.</p>
<p>“You feeling alright, Red?” Jason asks.</p>
<p>Suddenly, Tim breaks into laughter before pushing himself up off the wall. He stops laughing only to spit some blood out of his mouth and turns to Jason with an uncharacteristically wide smile.</p>
<p><em>Huh</em>, Jason thinks.</p>
<p>“You should see the other guy,” Tim replies, still smiling. His hair is stark black and dishevelled. His own blood stands out bright red against his uncharacteristically lopsided grin. It takes a moment before Jason remembers he had asked a question.</p>
<p>“Ha-ha. Very funny, jackass,” he jokes back, noncommittally.</p>
<p>Tim’s no longer laughing and Jason wishes that for once he actually had something funny to say at the right time.</p>
<p>Tim rarely turns his full attention towards anything. Not that he’s unable to focus on a task or what’s going on around him, it’s the opposite actually; Tim’s an incessant multitasker.</p>
<p>So when he does turn his full attention towards Jason – really, fully, paying attention – it’s unnerving. His eyes seem wider and somehow capable of seeing through Jason as well as seeing all of him at once, inside and out. Jason wouldn’t describe it as threatening, but it’s certainly destabilizing. He knows he’s not alone in this experience. He’s seen the nervous shift and sudden uncertainty that this gaze causes in other people, whether it’s Tim or Red Robin (yes, it translates even through a domino mask) whose eyes have latched onto them. Jason wonders if Tim has always had this quality. He wonders if Tim realizes when he’s doing this. He must, right?</p>
<p>Jason turns to the men lying on the ground. “Let’s see if we can’t get some answers out of these guys before the police arrive.” He hasn’t forgotten about the corpse he had run across earlier, and even in Dixon Docks there’s only so long a corpse can lie out in plain sight before someone notices and calls the GCPD.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>There wasn’t much information they could glean from the men in the alley.</p>
<p>Whether the men were still a bit out of it (which, judging by how rough Red Robin had acted towards them, was fairly likely) or they were just <em>that </em>reticent about giving up any information on their pals. The GCPD were on the scene before Red Robin or Red Hood could get anywhere. The men didn’t carry any identification with them – even their suit jackets had no tags.</p>
<p>Jason thinks they’re likely to open up more given a few days with the GCPD anyway. The corpse they left behind will at least ensure a temporary stay at the police station, for now.</p>
<p>Tim seemed more confident as they wound their way back uptown. He told Jason that the men had set off a small explosive in one of the old buildings when Tim arrived at the scene. The explosive (Tim had afterwards discovered) was the homemade kind. It was built with common materials and could have been made by anyone, according to Tim’s recounting. The explosion was big enough only to set a small fire that Red Robin quickly dealt with before he was taken unawares by twelve men and a few well-placed smoke bombs.</p>
<p>Jason asks him about his comms, but Tim says he can’t be sure until he gets back to his safehouse and checks. He suspects they set up an interfering signal, which points to a higher level of technological savvy than the home-made bomb initially suggested.</p>
<p>“I don’t think they expected me to even notice. I think they thought I was patrolling alone tonight.”</p>
<p>Truthfully, Jason isn’t all too surprised that Red Robin was ambushed like that.</p>
<p>He knows that Tim’s been stretched thin with most of the masks vacating Gotham lately. This was probably the first time since he’s started working with Tim that he was simply caught by surprise – not an altogether extraordinary feat when you’re overworked, overtired, and the men who did it are a new or unknown group (as Jason suspects they are). In Jason’s opinion, it was a long overdue mistake.  </p>
<p>By the time they’re halfway back from the docks the air hangs heavy with a humidity that will soon crack open with torrential rain. Earlier that afternoon the weather channels had already been predicting a certain amount of flooding.</p>
<p>Jason can practically already smell the wet concrete.</p>
<p>Tim says that it would be nice to have some rain.</p>
<p>“It might even cool down after the rain. You can scrap your plans for armoured booty shorts.”</p>
<p>They make their way onto a rooftop shaded by taller quiet residential buildings and the sky has taken on a strange colour. Like the yellow-purple bruise forming on Tim’s face, just visible as it peaks out from his mask. The sun streaking through swelling storm clouds.</p>
<p>Tim doesn’t make a move to continue onwards so neither does Jason. Instead he takes his helmet off and leans against the rooftop access doorway. It looks like it hasn’t been used in years, the door might even be rusted shut, but it has a small overhanging roof that will shield him from the rain when the clouds finally break.</p>
<p>Jason leans back and closes his eyes. He can hear the slight rumbling of clouds overhead. He can hear the regular sounds of a city in the early morning: cars driving sluggishly down the street, people shuffling towards the nearest chain café or subway station. He can hear Tim stepping towards him. He thinks he sees a flash of lightning through his eyelids. He sits like this for what feels like forever, waiting for the rain.</p>
<p>Finally he hears the first drops of rain hit the metal sheet above him. He can smell the faint scent of sweat and copper and Tim must be under the sheet too.</p>
<p><em>It’s not too late</em>, he thinks. <em>I can still beat the rain.</em></p>
<p>When he opens his eyes he sees Tim’s domino mask. It’s raining hard. The sky is dark and suffocatingly close.</p>
<p>He briefly wishes he could see into Tim like Tim seems to be able to see into him. Even through the domino mask Tim’s eyes are impassable, making them seem colder than maybe they even are. Right now, they’re cold enough to make Jason shiver.  </p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are memories of confusion (and fear). Memories of red of dirt surrounding and under fingernails. Memories of blood and sudden brightness before eyelids. An empty landscape, and maybe other things. Things without meaning. He thinks now (much, much after) of failed resurrection: monsters chasing their creators into ice, threatening death if the creator doesn’t give the monster… something, he couldn’t quite remember what.</p>
<p>Remembrance of confusion and fear (and overwhelming love). But later, there is thought found in a pool of green. But there are other forms of sight and thought makes a palimpsest of memory. (How uncertain everything is.)</p>
<p>Maybe it doesn’t matter how they got there now, but here they are in the arctic, death underfoot.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jason’s memories of his life after crawling from the ground are vague and erratic. He knows he went from the ground to the water and then later Talia brought him to other waters, greater this time than the green pool of the Lazarus Pit, before he hits ground again in Gotham. He knew he was being followed by Ra’s’ and Talia’s men and everything else, but wasn’t ready for his body to hit water or soil again.</p>
<p>In typical fashion, he took down child smugglers and Talia calls him a murderer and thinks him a psychopath. He didn’t work to prove her wrong.</p>
<p>Later, it shouldn’t have been as easy as it was for her to just drop that file in front of him. A new Robin and judging from the amount of pictures and data in that single file (he knew there would be more) she’d known for quite a little while.</p>
<p>It took him longer to go through the Replacement files than he would have guessed. It wasn’t so much the pain of what he was reading, but the stupid nauseating feeling he got. Like staring into some alternate universe. This new Robin was closer to his age than he was to Dick’s. He was at most only a few years younger than Jason, even counting Jason’s time in the grave (he’ll put off figuring out whether or not the period of his death could be counted as ageing, or if it was just like someone had pressed pause on his life). His hair was even had the same dark hair that Jason used to have, only straighter and longer than Jason’s ever was.</p>
<p>He used to stare at the picture with his eyes crossed. If he did that, if he looked at it like that for long enough, they could be twins. Never mind the good number of inches that separated them in height (in the coming years this would halve, anyway) or the way Tim’s eyes were smaller, more focused, and a completely different colour. Never mind the way Tim’s rare smiles slanted in a way that made them look sharper and sometimes unkind. Never mind the dimples that Tim didn’t have (he would later discover that Tim did in fact have a dimple in his left cheek, but only if he was smiling particularly hard.) Even with these differences, if Jason crossed his eyes and looked hard enough, he and Tim were the same.  </p>
<p>It hurt to do this for too long but if Jason closed his eyes tight, he could almost believe it anyway. Believe that somebody chose to wake up the wrong angry motherfucker and called him Jason. That the real Jason Todd was still in Gotham, alive after all. But there were too many memories and too much anger to discount. It was all there in the files. This was Tim. Tim who idolized Robin anyway. Tim who ran around Gotham alone with a camera, seeking him out.</p>
<p>Tim who replaced him. Tim who made it all the easier for Bruce to ignore and then forget everything that happened to Jason.</p>
<p>The files bled together in the angry way things did back then. He felt like the Lazarus Pit was still slowly working to patch him up, with parts of his brain still decayed from his time underground. Since coming back, and even since the Pit, his brain often felt fuzzy to the point of nausea. He found himself losing patience and only able to focus while almost blindly angry.</p>
<p>Talia readily encouraged this. She told him he was a better fighter now than he ever was before or he ever would have been otherwise.</p>
<p>He didn’t care. What he wanted was to return to Gotham. What he wanted was to force everyone’s hand.</p>
<p>He thought, <em>it goes like this: a kid stepping into the shoes of a murdered child while the murderer is still on the loose.</em></p>
<p>He could barely see it before, but everyone was stepping dangerously close to running full circle, as if he didn’t even exist.</p>
<p>These days, he knows that they still expect him to double over with guilt about what he did back then. Really though, Jason only regrets two things about those days: (1) not killing the Joker, and (2) attacking the one person who he now thinks might be his only friend.</p>
<p>It took time, quite a bit of it, but between them everything seemed to fall together – inevitable.</p>
<p>Initially, it was Tim reaching out with information and then Jason reaching back with contacts. Soon enough they were often seen on the roofs of the city together chasing the same perp or on slower nights just watching.</p>
<p>As Red Robin, Tim was precise. He knew every move needed and never went in blind. Everything he did was somehow both calculated and pure. Working with anyone else like this, Jason would have been annoyed (maybe even a little jealous) but Tim seemed to belong out here.</p>
<p>Everything that followed seemed to fall together in much the same way. Jason’s not even quite sure when they first slept together. It could have been the one night after catching some low-level perp. Or maybe it was the morning after they spent all night taking down a whole gang, when Jason was too tired and bruised to go home and Tim’s apartment was right around the corner. This feeling of almost inevitability where Tim’s concerned has since blurred his perception of chronology.</p>
<p>What he does remember is the acidic tension as he lowered his eyes and fumbled in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes but found Tim’s steady breathing at his mouth instead. The way his lips were chapped and he was afraid to close his eyes as Tim pressed his lips against Jason’s. How after a second he closed his eyes anyway.</p>
<p>What he does remember, is feeling anxious after. How he found himself completely incapable of even guessing at Tim’s thoughts. How he started to worry about the line he knew he had crossed. But the next day there Tim was, with a fresh pack of cigarettes for him and some new information.</p>
<p>After that, things only got blurrier.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Even during the summer months and the sweltering humidity of the storm, Jason feels cold to the touch. The kind of cold that clings to you as you walk in from lower temperatures – only a matter of time before it’s dispelled.</p>
<p>Tim can think of nothing better as he feels Jason’s skin grow warm against his own. Jason’s often joked that Tim’s like a furnace, practically unbearable. He could burn the entire building down.</p>
<p>Tim can barely stop himself from smiling as Jason leans into him from the wall, his hands raising to the back of Tim’s neck and his lips warming against his own.</p>
<p>When Tim feels the heat underneath that layer of cold, he finds it hard to imagine that Jason was actually ever entirely cold.</p>
<p>Jason can feel his fingers warmer now against Tim’s skin. He didn’t think he could get hotter than these summer temperatures already made him, but Tim was always like that. Like he kept a small heater at the center of him. He presses closer anyway, like it’s the dead of winter.</p>
<p>Jason tries to clear his head. With Tim’s skin against his own, he often feels dangerously close to becoming completely untethered. He thinks of the rain above them, clanging loudly against the metal awning above. He follows its path in his head.</p>
<p>The gutters are overflowing. Rainwater is streaming through Gotham’s streets dirty and murky in the first place and getting more so as it swallows up debris. The rushing water is almost as loud as the rain when it picks up speed. People are hiding under umbrellas if they’re prepared or hoodies and bags if they aren’t. The cab fares are skyrocketing and everyone who is wearing their nice shoes or their white shoes is regretting it by now. The water surges and splashes as it follows the predetermined path of Gotham’s streets, all of which slant in towards the reservoir. What little green space Gotham has is turned to pockets of wet grass and dirt.</p>
<p>Tim’s hand steadily grips his jacket and he shifts to bring them farther under their small shelter. Tim leans into his direction and he’s flush against the wall again, pulling Tim in towards him just as much as Tim is pushing himself towards Jason. He thinks his heart is going crazier now than it has at any point this week. Pouring out of his open mouth and vibrating against Tim’s, there’s no way the sound of it isn’t audible even in the thrumming rain.</p>
<p>Jason feels dizzy as he drags his teeth against Tim’s lip for a second, feeling the swollen bump of his earlier injury.</p>
<p>He can still taste the blood.</p>
<p>The taste of it spills through his mouth and goes the wrong way – his tongue curls and his throat constricts for a second in protest, but only a second. He’s amused to find that this moment has returned a forgotten childhood emotion to him: the pure glee and contentedness of finding pennies on street corners and in payphones. This bright and forgotten corner of his childhood had been so little thought of that it had practically disappeared altogether until now.</p>
<p>If Tim notices the blood he doesn’t let on. Jason presses his mouth against the side of Tim’s mouth that is busted up and still bleeding just a little, thinking of pennies.</p>
<p>Tim presses against him and the memory is so vivid he almost freezes.</p>
<p>He pulls at Tim, as if trying to get him closer although he’s about as close as he can get at the moment. Tim’s tongue in his mouth and he used hold these pennies, these found treasures, against his tongue as if to claim them.</p>
<p>How his mother would catch him sometimes before he could hide them away with the rest of his small stash. He would look at the blue vines of her veins stretching up her thin arms as she gently grabbed his jaw with one hand and had him spit it out with into the other. (<em>Are you kidding me, Jason? You know these things are dirty as hell, right? You’re going to get sick. You’ll get so sick if you keep doing this that I’ll have to take you to the hospital. Are you going to use all these pennies to pay for the hospital bills? … I thought not. Chances are you’d catch something worse if they took you there and you’d die anyway! If I catch you chewing on pennies again…</em>) He kept them in a small plastic bag he kept under his mattress. It was uncomfortable sleeping against the small cancerous lump at night, but comforting to know it was there, too.</p>
<p>As far as he can remember his stash was thrown out alongside the water-clogged mattress after their apartment flooded one year. He either never bothered to restart or he never got the chance.</p>
<p>He pushes the memory away and sinks into Tim.</p>
<p>The next day Tim calls. He tells Jason that his rebreather is missing and that Jason should come to the housewarming party.</p>
<p>“I’ll come around.”</p>
<p>“Yeah well, I won’t be holding out for a ride from you or anything.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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